Mining needs a rework ASAP

[Antonio]

Disclaimer: I'm not taking shots at any particular faction for their ability to mine. All non-mining factions lore-wise are equally to blame. Just because UN was the most recent one doesn't mean they're directly at fault here, they just reminded me and further emphasized the problem of mining in general.

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How long are we going to keep adding even more systems with mining fields and further spread out activity? What faction is next on the line to get a mining bonus for whatever reason they come or don't come up with, for the sake of fitting with the rest? These are the 2 biggest issues with the mining system right now.

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1. Too many systems containing mining fields.

As if spreading out activity through terrible connections between systems isn't a massive issue on its own, adding more and more systems with a mining field only adds salt to the wound. Spreading out miners and making everyone mine in their own field with minimal chance for interaction is the absolute opposite of what we should be aiming for. Everyone getting their own field and commodity to mine reminds me of guard systems. Everyone could request one for 500m back in the day, and it's taking us years to fix the horrible system clogging we experienced from them. Are we that stupid that we're repeating the same mistake again, on an arguably more important topic that directly affects economy?

Here's how to fix it. Make clearly defined mining systems with all the fields from an area in it. There should be 1, maybe 2 systems per area max. (area = houses, Taus, Omicrons, Omegas, etc.), and everyone with their respective bonuses gets something to mine in that area, relative to their ZoI and presence in said areas. For example, Omicrons'd have Omicron Theta or Delta, and you could say that if it was in Delta, Outcasts and Corsairs would get a nerf to it based off the fact that they don't deserve mining commodities to begin with, which results in longer travel time to the mining fields.

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2. Too many mining factions.

I'm afraid fixing it won't be easy because forcibly taking stuff away from people has proven to never go smoothly. Personally I don't think Outcasts, Corsairs or any faction that doesn't have a mining lore such as Hessians or Mollys should be given the ability to mine, but I understand that at this point doing such a radical change is very difficult.

What people often overlook is that every new faction that is given the ability to shoot rocks undermines all mining factions directly or indirectly. Those mining factions lose flavor every time, and they're becoming less and less appealing to the point nowadays where they have absolutely nothing over other factions except maybe the ability to fly 5kers.

ID balance is necessary to keep the global presence and flavor of IDs. If Corsairs and Outcasts have enormous ZoI with Omicrons, multiple houses and border worlds, a complete shipline from LFs to 2 different battleships, almost-terrorist ID lines with the ability to pirate anyone for money or cargo -and- the ability to mine and transport their commodities with 5kers, what can BMM or Kishiro do to compete? You just shared the one thing they had over others in appeal and gave it to someone that doesn't need more. Should they get battleships in return to compensate? No, the former should never have gotten the ability to mine in the first place.

Even if there's a valid reason why something -can- happen, it doesn't mean it should. In this case it definitely shouldn't as it directly impacts ID balance. I can give you an example from balancing ships. People ask me often "how can the biggest ships be faster at turning than smaller ones" and the answer is always the same - while inRP the perfect and logical conclusion would in fact be that they should be slower, for the sake of game balance we make them faster to give them the ability to stay relevant. If Corsair Cruiser goes back to 17 turn rate, it becomes useless. If Anaconda goes to 62 turn rate, it becomes useless. If HFGB goes to 30 turn rate, it becomes useless. You see the patter. If everyone gets the ability to mine, mining factions become useless. They already almost are, the only saving grace is the lawful reputation.

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I'd like your thoughts on this because it's an important topic with serious impact on the economy and player interaction. Miners are core of all ore based activity, which today is still the most profitable one. As for the actual work required to re-calculate the routes, we have so many tools nowadays such as wonderful calculators or FL Companion that it's not nearly as big of a deal as letting the status quo remain.

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SNAC Montage Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Thruster SNAC

[Major.]

Point 1: We are already working on it, I'm not going to say more then: Mining fields will be moved and centralised.

Point 2: We are trying to balance this with mining bonuses and droprates for the factions.
I'm still think that PoB's are taking a importent role here, because they are good for storing ore, but they aren't really good for mining operations and then heading for the trade runs.

Ps. Yes for IMG|it's working since they can log more 5 players at once, but for the rest it's hard, maybe even nearly impossible.

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[LaWey]

but they aren't really good for mining operations and then heading for the trade runs.

They are super good. Im fill pobs with transport+ miner group and it very fast, then traders distribute commodity from PoB. And i guess, Darkseid work in same manner in Munich.

[Laura C.]

but they aren't really good for mining operations and then heading for the trade runs.

They are super good. Im fill pobs with transport+ miner group and it very fast, then traders distribute commodity from PoB. And i guess, Darkseid work in same manner in Munich.

I guess he meant the important limitation that either someone with POB admin access has to be around to switch between buying and selling mode, or the base provide services with loss because it buys and sells for the same prices, so the owner does not make any profit while paying the maintanmance costs.

To the OP - there is talk about mining rework for some time, so I suppose it is going to happen in near future. Hopefully it will be done reasonably and thus will help. Regarding Bering field - I would wait with evaluation to see how things will go. The idea of making place where miners, lawfuls and unlawfuls from two houses actually can encounter does not seem bad. Though I would expect ALG to have mining bonus too to involve Rheinland more, it is surprising they were not included.

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On a ragebreak. Or ragequit. Time will tell.

[Major.]

Not really, what I said was: PoB's are good for mining operations, but before we had PoB's, the mining forced the people either to log off or to move their ore towards the sellpoints. (That's why people managed to gather huge convoys).
Nowadays you can just log off and relog at a later point to powertrade or use your timezone to trade when no one is online.

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[LaWey]

Not really, what I said was: PoB's are good for mining operations, but before we had PoB's, the mining forced the people either to log off or to move their ore towards the sellpoints. (That's why people managed to gather huge convoys).
Nowadays you can just log off and relog at a later point to powertrade or use your timezone to trade when no one is online.

This is indeed good. I dont understand why people think better force player switch on NOT needed convoys instead of normal trader play. And i can say - when you have many people with DIFFERENT time zones its realy savior of your game. Now disco dont have so many players and PoB solve this problem. Not "people dont log because PoB" but "PoB builded because people dont log". No need swap this facts.

I can say about my experience, and PoB save my game when im physicaly cannot play with my clients, OR i needed do another RP for another character in this time. We dont have many mining traders/miners to easy choose and logging in any time.

[Enkidu]

The new update was in the spirit of navmap activity hot-spotting of the kind Karlotta suggested, without leaching content from other systems. Content-cutting is like amputating limbs from a sick person when bed-rest, exercise and food would have the same result. It's cost Disco some of its most unique content and lore before, without solving activity drops. Things like the unknown events and PVP changes have proven that adding content actually provides more impetus to play than cutting-fat. Content-adding in a way that centralises activity is proven to work. The server zoomed up to 115 people recently due to rebalances of the Gallic conflict and increased house unlawful viability, Unknown events, increased new player friendliness, along with a few other factors.


Military salvage only exists because UN lobbied for it and Congress suck the oar in and helped. It exists as an activity centralisation tool that encourages co-op play between lawful military and traders in an already active zone. The original idea wasn't "I want a buff", it was "Imagine if this dead-end system could become something worth fighting over for a different reason than simply that I'm encouraging people to log here".

Lyth once made a "tiers of activity" post which detailed sustainable activity v unsustainable forms (such as raids). Raids are usually promoted by a few vocal community leader figures who are good at managing community resources/getting the word out of joint activity times. Bering is a great system for that, but it's not sustainable. If me, Skorak, the 5th, 6th, or 1st fleet leaders depart without proper replacement, that activity format is going to get damaged. It's also only helpful for a few specific PVP oriented IDs.


The mining zone is there to intertwine econ and PVP. People fight more coherently when cash is at stake. The highest activity moments in disco occur when risk/reward is high, for example the 2014 AI/GMG conflict which had the server consistently maxed for a whole month with constant, 24/7 PVP and RP in Sigmas 13 and 17, over one POB that never got beyond core 1, that happened to be just a tad too close to an NPC station.

Omega 11 also works great. Hessians can mine there along with lawfuls, and both sides are equally at risk from each other. That's good. The corporates still mine at higher rates, so whilst the Hessians can fight better, they lose the direct econ advantage. The best measure is always "What are the indies doing?" I've seen hessian indie miners fight RNC and vice versa with Vidars and DHC. Not the most sophisticated activity form, but if it works, it works. If people are motivated to play, you're doing something right.


Unioners have the PVP advantage in Bering against DSE, but DSE can team up with the navy and steamroll Unioners to get to the zone and earn more cash-per-person than any group of Unioners ever could = teamplay at its finest. Constructing synergies where allied groups are encouraged to work together is the best activity generator the server can have, as it makes multiple IDs active and encourages people to experience lots of different types of gameplay. That doesn't mean nerfing the capacities of IDs - the fact that Unioners can mine mean there'll be Unioner miners in the zone for the military and police to shoot at - suddenly the game becomes all the more strategic than simply "LN/Unioners in Bering. Log and shoot. Oh, they're gone, log off I guess", becomes "The other team is dead, log the mining ships".



Whilst I'd agree that there is a problem with mine zones, I'd rationalise that the problem isn't the number of zones, its the location of the zones. Quite often they're too far away from the NPC stations and trade lane infrastructure of people who could present challenges, lawful or unlawful. It's fine for there to be loads of Omicron mining zones, but they need to be under a greater sense of threat. Mining should be dangerous. That works great in Dublin - you've got at least 3 dedicated POBs because of potential Molly piracy and the need to store resources.

The bad zones are a hangover from days where mining zone systems were intentionally made rather remote due to different development practices. It's getting better. The cutting-to-specialise theory has never worked in the past, we shouldn't keep going for it.

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THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)

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[Sand-Viper]

On the subject of the new Military Salvage in Bering, this actually brought up an interesting idea in my head just now.

Let's say that Bering received the "Contested" status, and therefore consequently the 30-minute respawn timer. DSE and UN| are set up to be serious competitors in a grab for resources that generates money. As stated before, money is a powerful motivator. Junkers are also in a place to benefit from this, though whether or not they'll remain neutral or pick a side in this remains to be seen.

But what if a minable commodity was necessary for the construction of a PoB producible item?

Military Salvage means some seriously powerful technology, possibly allowing groups that have never seen such tech to pick up the pieces and forge something completely new, the likes of which no one has seen before. I know the idea of PoB-produced weaponry has been a topic brought up in the past, and with mixed feelings. But what if the simple task of obtaining the commodity is in a highly contested PvP zone? It would give people not only a money motivator to log in and secure the commodity, but a unique non-money end-goal reward, as well. Adding to this, if you require three different minable commodities from three different pvp-contested systems/areas, then it would limit the number of weapons that are producible, especially if you need an absurd amount of them for a single weapon (Such as a snub or freighter turret codename, or dare I say, a gunboat codename..?). Add in a 30-minute respawn timer, and the sense of urgency is created to mine as much as possible while the opposition is down.

Perhaps Military Salvage can be left alone as it stands right now: A money source. But it would be pretty darn neat to see a minable commodity or commodities that are required for the construction of a PoB-Exclusive set of Codenames. Said commodities could be in pvp-contested areas, and be difficult to obtain en-masse, since you would have to worry about protecting the miners from assailants. If these commodities are given a low enough yield, then even during low-population times, it may cause some stress-sweating of individual miners. Combine a low yield with a high commodity cost to produce the item, and couple it with the chance that you can be jumped at any time, and you have some serious potential for frequent pvp activity.

Tangent idea on that note: Instead of weapons, make it a PoB-Produced Blueprint. Once said blueprint is acquired, a Player Request could be made for a "PoB Produced" ship that has a unique advantage, such as for example, a Civilian VHF with 6 code slots, or a HF with 2 of its 6 gun slots being capable of mounting missiles, in addition to a CD slot, or even a freighter with a bomber torpedo slot.

I bring all of this up because, as part of a potential "rework" of the mining system, I would love to see minable commodities that, while may be unsellable to any NPC bases, would be highly valuable and sought after by PvP oriented individuals. This would cause PvPers to seek help from those who enjoy mining, and thus a symbiotic relationship can be formed. In return, the ones who wish to obtain these weapons can shower the miners with their own money, which re-cycles credits and places them in multiple hands, thus stimulating the economy in a small way.

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[Enkidu]

It could actually be done using the diversity of pre-existing mineables rather than adding in a new zone type.

Cryo-organisms, Xeno-Relics, Military Salvage, Iridium 'ore', Narharcrite, Azurite, Premium-scrap all seem like valid resources for building codes out of. Throw in a couple of base-building resources like magnetic superconductors and you've already got everything ingame to form weapon blueprints.

Since you can't trade cargo in Conn, people will have to InRp haul this stuff around, as well. Gives go-anywhere factions like Zoners/researchers a bit more gameplay purpose, too, as they can viably be the middle-men for shifting hardware recipies.

Don't even need to add in new equipment. Make it a surrogate means to build sci-data weapons/sci-data rewards for those of us who go to every sci data event but never seem to get anything.

Hell, you could implement an early version of it now without adding a POB factory:

"I've got all of this stuff together in this place in-storage on my base, and I've done sufficient RP. Let me make an application post."



Good spot with the Military Salvage RP. It's supposed to add to the number of lore justification as to how edge-world groups without massive research/military industrial complexes of the houses can keep up with the Joneses in the primary houses in tech level - therefore, it's meant to be very illegal to handle for people other than those who contracted by governments to safely dispose of it, like DSE and ALG are. Imagine trying to sell bits of a crashed stealth fighter in the real world.

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THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)

Information | Recruitment | Message Dump |
Feedback | Diplomatic channel

(Links pending redevelopment).

[Sand-Viper]

It could actually be done using the diversity of pre-existing mineables rather than adding in a new zone type.

Cryo-organisms, Xeno-Relics, Military Salvage, Iridium 'ore', Narharcrite, Azurite, Premium-scrap all seem like valid resources for building codes out of. Throw in a couple of base-building resources like magnetic superconductors and you've already got everything ingame to form weapon blueprints.

I dig this (pun intended)! It would be nice to have an alternative way of obtaining Sci-data weaponry, especially for folks like me who always seem to be at work or attending non-FL needs when all of the darn PvE-events happen. Besides spending weeks farming billions to buy Sci-Data off of other players, there is literally zero possibility for me to ever dream of obtaining a shiny set of Feuerballs, or even a simple Cultist engine, without external assistance.

Edit: The fact that these commodities would all need to be hauled to a central location (A single PoB), there would be an increased need to hire scouts and escorts to protect the haulers. In some cases, you would also need to contact one or more factions to establish diplomatic ties, alliances or business relationships, just to be able to obtain the desired commodity. "Yo, we heard you want this. Money is neat, but it sure would be nice if you could field some sentries to watch over our pickaxes in the field."

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